READ: Trump wants to label Dems as “terrorists.” Here’s what happens next.

After helping lead DHS under Trump, I know how dark this can get.

President Trump says he’s considering designating Antifa and other left-leaning groups as “domestic terrorists.” That phrase may sound like political theater, but it’s not. As someone who helped lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the first Trump administration, I know that it’s a harbinger.

Put aside, for a moment, the basic absurdity of the premise. Antifa isn’t a formal organization. It doesn’t have offices or a payroll or a national hierarchy. It’s just a loose collection of protestors and activists with no centralized structure. Although some of its adherents have thrown rocks and incendiary devices during protests, you can’t really “join” Antifa any more than you can subscribe to punk rock. But facts haven’t stopped Trump before, and they certainly won’t now.

The truth is that the president doesn’t need much to declare a domestic “war on terror.” That’s what he’s on the cusp of doing. Such a campaign would, of course, be the party mask he wears to thinly disguise his real purpose: a Censorship War.

And it could get very dark, very fast.

In practice, being designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government is a big deal. During my time in the national security community, when we designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) — like al-Qaeda or ISIS — it meant the gloves were coming off. Such designations cleared a pathway to hunt those suspects with special forces, to seize financial assets, to surveil the cellphones and computers of their members without warrants, to throw their associates into terrorist prisons beyond the reach of U.S. courts, and if necessary eliminate them on the battlefield.

Trump has already shown what he’s willing to do with that power. He recently designated drug cartels as terrorists. And Trump’s military leaders have since used those powers to blow up boats of dope-runners in the Caribbean. He didn’t dispatch law enforcement to arrest them, put them on trial, and send them to prison, which is what he should have done under the law. Instead he used a missile and blew them to bits. Right after this happened, I warned that these powers weren’t far off from being used against civilians, perhaps even Americans.

Before you start imagining what happens if this logic is turned inward — and you should — I must issue a caveat.

Under current U.S. law, there’s no specific authority to designate U.S. groups as “domestic terrorist organizations” (DTOs). There are FTOs, yes, but there’s no such thing as DTOs. That’s not an accident. I helped lead negotiations with the White House and Congress on whether to give the president the power to go after homegrown extremists the way he can against foreign terrorists. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle feared what would happen if a president could just wave a wand and name any domestic group as a “terrorist org.” They were right to worry.

But Trump and his team don’t think they need Congress. In fact, I anticipate they’ll do an end-run around the legislature. I know the people in the White House and Justice Department who are in charge, and here’s how they’re probably thinking about it.

First, they’ll have the president or Justice Department issue an order declaring a campaign against domestic terrorists.

Next, they’ll cobble together existing laws and authorities to create a de facto system for designating such groups as “DTOs,” in a way that feels formal and bureaucratic, without ever getting permission from Congress.

Then they’ll start abusing federal powers to go after those organizations, and it will morph into campaign against Democrats and their political networks.

To surveil left-leaning groups, Trump’s DOJ could potentially invoke the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, claiming Antifa or similar outfits have foreign ties, even if those ties are tenuous. This could conceivably allow them to broadly monitor their devices and communications. Even without FISA, the FBI could try to use Title III wiretaps or issue so-called National Security Letters — which don’t even require a judge’s signoff — to obtain activists’ internet, phone, and financial records. From there, they’ll leap frog into investigating any “associated” groups.

Trump’s team might use similar logic to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in order to freeze the assets of target groups. They might also use civil forfeiture to seize property from activists without ever proving they committed a crime. And they’ve already hinted at how they’ll have prosecutors stack up charges against the left, including conspiracy, RICO, rioting, and obstruction. That’s how the government took down the mafia. Now imagine it pointed at protest networks.

Even if it’s not official under U.S. law, once Trump has branded groups as DTOs, he’ll give the green light to federal agencies to escalate scrutiny. DHS and FBI personnel around America will be directed to prioritize intelligence collection and information sharing about left-leaning groups, label them as threats, and open sweeping investigations that will last for years. Once these organizations are fed into the federal government’s vast counterterrorism machine, they’ll be spit out as a shell of themselves with their leaders’ and members lives’ ruined.

This has been a long time coming.

“A future White House might use a threat like terrorism as a pretext for investigating political rivals,” I predicted years ago, outlining the scenario.

I sat down with Tom Warrick, one of the government’s top counterterrorism officials after Trump’s first term. He’d seen the president inching toward naming opposition groups as domestic terrorists, starting with the flimsy claim that Antifa was the head of the snake. Like me, he was concerned about what would happen if Trump won a second term and saw it through.

“The effort to say there was an Antifa terrorist threat was really the creation of a phantom menace,” he told me. “But I assume we are going to see the invention of domestic terrorist enemies. This is one of the scariest aspects of what a ‘Trump Two’ would bring into office…Security searches at the U.S. border are just one example. Hassling people at airports will become a sport — just like hassling people with their tax returns.”

An FBI agent I spoke with echoed the sentiment. He explained that the counterterrorism powers of TSA and CBP at the airports would symbolize the shift toward treating political opponents as domestic terrorists.

“They could sift through the pocket litter of a Democratic congressman” (police terminology for the personal effects of a target) “or maybe their electronic devices, all in the name of fighting Antifa.” I elaborated on the implications, adding: “Whatever personal information they find could be used to intimidate, threaten, or silence opponents…[but] the harassment won’t end with border searches. It will escalate into sham prosecutions of political rivals.”

Now here we are. Today we’re at the precipice of the Trump administration turning America’s city streets into the front lines of a domestic war on terror.

I don’t say any of this to alarm you. But if we don’t anticipate how bad it could get, we won’t be prepared to protect our Constitutional rights against federal encroachment. My fragile hope is that officials at the Justice Department will see how legally and morally questionable this would be, understand that they’ll be smacked down by the courts (eventually), and advise the president to just go after criminal group that fund violence, as they should.

But I won’t hold my breath. At the end of my forecast about the weaponization of U.S. counterterrorism powers, here’s what I wrote:

“People who defected from the Trump administration joke darkly about being sent to the terrorist prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, (known as ‘Gitmo’) under a MAGA successor. They have good reason. Trump once proposed that we transport illegal immigrants to the detention facility, which is home to the 9/11 attack plotters, in order to send a message to would-be border crossers. He was talked out of it — not because it was wrong but because the jail was too small for large numbers of inmates. If America elects another leader like Trump, we could see high-profile political prisoners shipped off to Gitmo instead. And books like this will be written from prison cells, if at all.”

Of course, America didn’t elect “another leader like Trump.” It re-elected Trump himself — the man who fantasized about treating the opposition like terrorists — and who’s been waiting for this moment for a long time.

P.S. WHAT’S HAPPENING ON TREASON

Five things to put on your radar screen this week.

1. ONE: Today (4pmET) - Exclusive conversation with CNN’s Elie Honig. We’ll be talking about Eli’s new book released TODAY called When You Come At the King… which is pretty damn timely. You can join here.

2. TWO: Wednesday (12noonET) - Weekly Wednesday Coffee - We’ll do another small-group coffee on Substack LIVE this Weds at 12noonET / 9aPT. Exclusively for subscribers. You can join here. Bring questions to ask in the chat.

3. THREE: Wednesday (4pmET) - One-on-one with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart - I’ll be joined on Substack LIVE by MSNBC anchor Jonathan Capehart. Tune in for bold predictions. You can join here.

4. FOUR: Thursday (4pmET) - A special conversation with former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn - I’ll be joined on Substack LIVE by Harry, and we’ll talk about the Censorship War being waged by the Trump administration. You can join here.

5. FIVE: Friday (4pmET) - War Department unleashed? - I’ll be joined on Substack LIVE by former CNN correspondent Barbara Starr to discuss how the Pentagon is being turned against Americans. You can join here.